Sunday, March 3, 2013

Some Strange Facts About Albert Einstein

By : Craig Baird

If you ask someone
to name a genius, nine times out of ten that person is going to name a man by
the name of Albert Einstein. Einstein is the image of a genius in our society
because of his revolutionary concepts that helped to create the future that we know.
It is no surprise that Time Magazine chose Einstein as the Person of the
Century in 1999. While we know all about Einstein creating the Theory of
Relativity and E=mc2, there are some other interesting facts about the man with
the wild hair.

1. Einstein Had
Trouble Speaking

Even though he was
essentially a genius, Einstein had trouble speaking when he was a child. As a
child, Einstein would speak very slowly as he would form sentences in his head
so he could speak them properly. This was not something confined to his very
early years, but continued all the way until he was nine. It worried his
parents so much that they thought he may have been mentally-handicapped. As it
turns out, speech problems are actually very common in individuals who are
described as brilliant later in their lives. In a book by Thomas Sowell, the
term Einstein Syndrome has been coined to describe gifted individuals who have
trouble speaking as children.

2. Einstein Had an
Interesting Relationship with His Wife

Einstein was
married to Mileva Maric, with whom he had two children, Hans Alberta and
Eduard. While Einstein was known as somewhat of a ladies’ man, plus his
constant traveling as part of his academic fame, the relationship between him
and Mileva became strained. After trying to work things out, the couple entered
into a contract that would allow them to live together under certain
conditions. These conditions, outlined by Einstein, were as follows:

a) You will make
sure my clothes and laundry are in good order.b) You will make sure that I will receive my three meals regularly in my room.c) You will make sure my bedroom and study is kept neat, and especially that my
desk is left for my use only.
d) You will renounce all personal relations with me insofar as they are not
completely necessary for social reasons.
e) You will stop talking to me if I request it.

3. Einstein, a
Pacifist, Urged Roosevelt to Create the Bomb

Einstein was
well-known for being a pacifist but even he could see the danger of the Nazi
Regime. So, in 1939, worried about the rise of Nazi Germany, Einstein was
convinced by Leo Szilard, a fellow physicist, to write a letter to President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The letter warned Roosevelt that Nazi Germany may be
working on developing an atomic bomb and it was important that the United States
began work on its own atomic program. This letter is
often cited as one of the main reasons that Roosevelt
began work on the Manhattan Project. The odd thing is that even though Einstein
helped push Roosevelt towards the idea of the
atomic bomb, the army did not trust Einstein and he was seen as a security
risk. As a result, he was not invited to help with the Manhattan Project in any
way.

4. The Great
Brain….Ends Up In a Trunk

The brain of one of
the most important men in history was seen as just too valuable to leave alone
following the death of Einstein in 1955. As a result, Thomas Stoltz Harvey, the
pathologist who did the autopsy on Einstein, chose to remove Einstein’s brain,
without notifying the family. Harvey
took the brain home and placed it into a jar where it remained for 43 years. Harvey was even fired
from his job because he would not release the brain to the family. Eventually, the son
of Einstein, Hans Albert, received permission to study Einstein’s brain, which
he did by sending slices to scientists all over the planet. Some of the
information found included the fact that Einstein’s brain had more glial cells
in the region of the brain that is responsible for synthesizing information.
Another study of the slices found that Einstein’s brain lacked a certain
wrinkle characteristic called the Sylvian Fissure. It is believed by some that
this allowed the neurons in Einstein’s brain to communicate better with each
other. One more study found that Einstein had a denser brain than most and the
inferior parietal lobe, which is where scientists believe mathematical ability
comes from, was larger than in normal brains. So, how did
Einstein’s brain end up in the trunk of a car? Well, in the early 1990s, Harvey went with a
freelance journalist on a cross-country trip to meet the granddaughter of
Einstein. They drove in a Buick Skylark with Einstein’s brain sitting in a jar
in the trunk. This entire escapade was turned into a book by the freelance
journalist.

5. Some More
Strange Facts

There are plenty of
strange facts about Einstein’s brain that are short and sweet, so here are a
few more about the great man.

a) No one knows
what Einstein’s final words were because he spoke them in German and his nurse
did not understand German.b) When Einstein received the Nobel Prize in Physics, he was not on hand to
accept the award because he was touring Japan at the time.
c) When Israel
was made into a country following the Second World War, Einstein was offered
the presidency. However, he chose to decline because as he said, he had no head
for problems.
d) Einstein was not known for being particularly well-dressed. When he was
younger, he found his big toe would make a hole in his sock, so he stopped
wearing socks from that point on. In addition, he refused to dress properly for
anyone, including important heads of state.
e) Einstein was so famous in his lifetime that people would stop him in the
street to ask him to explain to them the Theory of Relativity. He finally got
so tired with the questions that when someone would ask, he would respond “So sorry! Always I am mistaken for Professor Einstein.”f) Einstein was a genius of physics, but he was not very good at spelling.
Einstein’s second language was English, which may be a reason why his spelling
was pretty bad. Einstein often claimed he could speak English, but could not
write it because of his poor spelling.g) Einstein was a man of science, but he hated science fiction. He felt that
science fiction distorted pure science and he told people to stay away from
science fiction. As he said, “I never think about the future, it comes soon
enough.” He also did not believe in flying saucers, which became very well-known
in the last few years of his life.
h) At the age of 17, Einstein tried to enrol in the Swiss Federal
Polytechnical School,
but he failed his University Entrance Exam. While he passed the math and
science portions, he failed the rest, which including languages, geography and
history. As a result, Einstein went to trade school before he could retake the
exam a year later. The second time around, he passed.
i) Einstein actually had a poor memory. He often forgot the birthdays of his
wife and children, and it was not uncommon to see Einstein wandering around the
Princeton area in the afternoon because he
could not remember where he lived.